Househappenings

The post title is a reference to the fact that the season is nearly half over already. That sure was fast. Of course, it helps when CBS starts the season a week later than usual.

Libra is semi-officially a goner. After making a big show of possibly vetoing Keesha and putting Dan up to teach him a lesson, Jerry apparently made an ass of himself yet again with an ostentatious speech at the veto meeting, letting Dan know that he survived a nomination only by the barest margin. Jerry has never been a great social player, but he really doesn't seem to have an idea how little he's being tolerated in there right now. Even those who aren't happy with Dan just don't want to listen to it anymore.

After going on about honor for the last week, there was no way Jerry could really defy the HoH and use the veto, even though he had suggested to Keesha he might use it to save her and even though he'd rather see Dan or Memphis in trouble instead, he had little choice to leave the noms as they were. But he couldn't just give up the spotlight either. And frankly, the suspicion that Dan's actions were because of America's Player ought to make his situation look more understandable, not less. I can't imagine any of them would have turned it down, and would have accepted the role with fewer misgivings than Dan has.

So is there any possibility Libra won't be going? I suppose a Keesha blowup could rile the house, but the reputation of Libra is probably set in stone at this point and will lead to her departure. Besides, in-house surprises two weeks in a row (what happened last week was not an out-of-house surprise) are probably too much to hope for in BB10.

Posted by IA at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There have been other years where women set the tone in the Big Brother house--this is often a normal byproduct of the early targeting of Alpha males. Both Seasons 5 and 6 wound up as battles of opposing sides of women for the most part (even though Season 5 was won by a man).

But as April, Michelle, Libra, and Keesha went off once again with their latest mutual screaming fit, with the guys congregating downstairs for the most part (and Dan even trying to hide in the shower), it struck me that this may be the most woman-centered season yet. Season Six at least had Howie until the last couple of weeks, putting himself in the spotlight even if he didn't do much in the way of driving the game.

The dominant personalities in this house, however, are all women with the possible exception of Jerry, who stands out due to the novelty factor, and also because he won't shut up. But no one really thinks he's a driving factor in the game; he didn't even run the game when he was Head of Household during the first week. Jerry is following power pretty shamelessly. Ollie hasn't made an affirmative game move since his early hours, when he ditched the Brian/Dan alliance for the lure of an easy lay (sorry, but I gotta call it like I see it). He's tried to settle April down but basically has been satisfied with following her lead. Dan made the decision to lie low after the Brian and Steven evictions, and although he accepted the offer to become America's Player (and people in the house somehow figured it out too), he too has made no real effort to drive the game. And while Memphis has played a sound social game, to the point where he's amazingly well set up for someone who won a car in the game's first hour, he is certainly not making an effort to stoke the drama--I think it's smart game play to disguise how strong his position is, but he gives the appearance of letting others take the lead.

No, the Alpha personalities in the house right now are the women. Libra became a rare example of a woman leading a first-week rebellion against would-be male dominance (like Nicole in Season Two), and has continued to be seen as the driving force among her allies. Keesha's rivalry with April has helped shape the game too, leading to some extent to the eviction of Jessie. Michelle took a little while to stand out in a gaming sense, but she doesn't have a shrinking violet personality in the least and is likely to be a big force as long as she's still in the game. And of course, Renny. She's playing a game with some similarities to Memphis, in that she influences things quietly. But now that she's more or less openly allied with Keesha (which ought to become more obvious once Libra is out of the house), we can look for her game to come more to the fore too, in addition to which she's become a social player of no small skill.

Bottom line: the Will Kirbys, the Four Horsemen, the Chilltowns of yesteryear are nowhere to be found. The Alpha males got booted before mid-August this time around, and it's up to the women to give us some game to remember this season by. April/Ollie porn just is not sufficient.

Posted by IA at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jerry won the veto today, the second straight week he's pulled that off. OK, let's concede that his first week Head of Household post wasn't really a matter of him "winning" in the traditional sense. Even so, these two veto wins are two more than I expected him to have this season. I'm not even sure I thought he'd make the jury phase, so on that level you have to respect him, and you also have to respect how he's managed to keep up his energy level in there, despite the occasional slop diet.

But I have to ask: what the hell is wrong with this guy? I almost never identify with any of these people to the point that I pity them--they all signed up for this--and yet I find myself becoming totally annoyed with Jerry's denunciations of Dan, which are too over the top even for his new alliance. We hear a lot of talk about betrayals in this show, from fans and houseguests alike, but it's rare that anyone has taken it as seriously as Jerry has. He really is completely shocked that anyone would ever lie on Big Brother, which must call into question if he has ever seen the show before, though he claimed he had. It's gone way beyond thinking Dan is America's Player; he seems to think Dan has been using religion to excuse his "evil."

I don't typically go off on houseguests like this, but the guy is just really unpleasant, not adding anything except unintentional comic relief ("the X Factor"?), inappropriate physical contact with and remarks about women young enough to be his grand daughters, and his angry and misguided belief that anything about BB should involve honor.

Posted by IA at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night, it looked promising that Michelle might carry on a week-long vendetta from the Head of Household room, but things have calmed down considerably today. The only suspense was whether Libra and Keesha would be nominated together, or whether anger over Dan as the disloyal swing vote would propel him into the nominee's chair. Michelle chose to keep Dan safe, but he's the obvious pick as a replacement nominee should one of the women win the veto (and wouldn't it be something if Libra finally ended her uncanny run of second place finishes now that she really needs it).

Keesha on the block could be a situation to watch, though. She's a good deal more high strung than Libra, and her season-long anger with April could easily boil over, with April now home free and palling around with Michelle. It has to bug the others that April, who actually nominated Jessie in the first place, has gotten off scot free for his eviction. Libra might actually fare pretty well on the block; it will be interesting to see if she can manipulate Keesha into blowing her stack, preferably after I've turned down the sound on my Real player.

I'm going to look forward to seeing the food competition with the former hamsters--I'm a BB geek that way, even if some of those who appeared are the sorts of people (Boogie) I could easily go the rest of my (Boogie) life without ever thinking about again (Boogie), much less seeing (Boogie).

Posted by IA at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

And just like that, Michelle is back in the driver's seat, in a majority alliance for the first time with April and Ollie seamlessly swinging over to her side, and Memphis obviously not in a position to hold any grudge with her just because she wanted him gone. This sort of reversal takes place so frequently on BB that it can almost be deemed predictable.

The end of the HoH competition gave us that old familiar Season 6 feeling, with Michelle screaming that the win was for Jessie, and of course, just prior to that we had seen her taped message promising revenge against those who got him evicted. The only thing that's going to prevent a badly divided house is that there are too many people in there who don't really have a stake in division. But in the short run, there should be a lot of recriminations over the "surprise" vote, especially with this group having become so accustomed to the idea that what the HoH says goes. The somewhat predictable way they've ordered houseguests to vote this year, with the sure things going first and those perceived as possible swings going later, won't help matters either--saving Dan for last only makes it more obvious that he broke the tie.

Nothing about the lead-in was all that suprising to feedwatchers, who had realized for a few days that Jessie was history. It was still amusing to see the anti-Jessie element realize that they were going to need Dan, who unbeknowst to them was himself looking for a way to let them know that he was a willing turncoat, thanks to the America's Player orders he sensed he would get--though there was still that little bit of uncertainty until the moment Julie gave the word that America did hate Jessie after all.

So after being a major focus of attention from his first hours in the house, Jessie is now history, with only his memories and his misunderstanding of the meaning of the word deviant to sustain him. (And speaking of deviant, why is Libra getting all those audience questions anyway?) But I expect his ghost will haunt us at last as long as Michelle is HoH...and if we're lucky, no longer.

Posted by IA at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Most people who leave early on Big Brother have obvious flaws that would have hampered their games if they got to play 100 times, but every season features a houseguest or two who could very well have prospered in a different season, and with a different mix of hamsters.

I think Angie might be in that latter category. True, she didn't display incredible gamesmanship during her time in the house, but it's also clear that she simply could not click with the other women of BB10, and in a season where women seem to be calling most of the shots, that proved fatal for her. She was the third straight evicted player whose fate was sealed more due to social decisions she made in her early hours in the house than because of any threat she posed or alliance she belonged to.

Angie came into the house billed as the recent divorcee who was ready to spread her wings. I don't think the BB house is the place to do that by any stretch--when I think about things that spread in there, disease typically comes to mind. But she was attractive and appeared relatively good natured. Best of all, or so we might have assumed, she seemed to be the one woman in the house who was on the best terms with the most men. The early days of Big Brother are typically dominated by a male-led alliance, and women who can come along for the ride can often prosper in the game (of the three women who have won BB, two, Lisa and Maggie, fit this basic description).

Angie was usually the only woman who hung out in the backyard in the early days as Brian and his friends held forth. Of course, as much as she smoked (unless I've forgotten someone, she is clearly the most prolific smoker in BB history), she almost had to live outdoors. But her social game didn't seem to have much to do with belonging to an alliance. She rarely seemed to talk game with the guys, or with anybody really. This proved to be another problem in her eventual relationship with the women, because Libra in particular was all about the game, and helped to create an attitude whereby having a friendly demeanor towards targeted players meant that you were likely in cahoots with them.

Angie showed she could separate friendship from the game when she voted against Brian and Steven along with the crowd. She also became loosely associated with the Jessie/Michelle/Memphis alliance, although it always appeared that it was mostly self-defense on her part--she needed someplace to go, after all. If this were a normal season of BB, her status as an outsider should have kept her safe for a good length of the game. Unfortunately, this season is abnormal in many ways, and Keesha used her HoH reign to target not Jessie (who was the HoH who had gotten rid of Steven) and not Memphis (who could have been campaigned against on the grounds that he won the car), but Angie.

Angie was probably my favorite of the women in the house this season, but frankly this had a lot to do with the competition. She was a great sidekick for the men, with whom she seemed to share a relationship not unlike the lead character in My Boys. But after Brian and Steven left, she seemed to fade some as well, as if she realized that her only path to staying in the house was through the other women, and that was a road she wasn't going down. Talking to Julie Chen after her eviction, she clearly implied that she was targeted because the other young women, particularly the one who nominated her (Keesha), were jealous of her relationship with the guys, and I have to agree that Keesha's rationale for going after Angie--she supposedly didn't defend Steven enough--was pretty lame considering everyone in the house voted out Steven and there didn't seem to be any controversy about it.

But she's back with Dan and Steven now, and won't even have to endure sequester. Let's just hope she kicks the cigarettes at some point.

Posted by IA at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight's episode of Big Brother was unusually entertaining, one of the very rare episodes where competitions and subsequent gaming were not front and center. Instead, we had a two-segment interlude right in the center of the show dealing with the big fight on Friday night/Saturday morning. This had game significance (although the show made it seem as if its only significance was putting Jessie in more danger, whereas we can now see it as the place where the big alliance started to fray), but was also fun to just sit and watch again. The fact that it all happened in the middle of an alleged birthay party made it the closest thing to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that we're ever likely to see on BB.

The fight pushed the veto competition well into the second half of the show, and this was followed by Michelle ranting about her prize (justified in a way--anyone would be mad in her spot--although her personal attack on Libra was in very poor taste). I don't think there was a single game conversation shown after the veto, no scene where April went over the plan with Jerry, or the nominees made entreaties. It's a different way of constructing an episode, and one I hope they experiment with a little more. Once they see how strong fan reaction is, I think we might get some more of it.

I was curious about one thing, though: didn't it seem as if Jessie was treated relatively gently on the show? His role in the fight wasn't glossed over, but with his Diary Room comments edited in, his behavior almost came across as likably provocative--the sort of thing Will Kirby might have done, although he didn't finesse it all that well. Still, I don't think too many fans of the game would say that what Jessie did was dirty pool: Libra and Keesha really were trashing April, all their profane protests aside; and there's nothing at all wrong with using an overheard conversation in an attempt to help yourself.

Jessie also appeared genuinely moved by the sob story Dan told in order to coax the hug (an excellent piece of gamesmanship by Dan), which was something he did with no game payoff expected. And later, with Michelle at the end of her rope after the veto competition turned out so badly for her, he gave her some nice words of encouragement. I wouldn't find any of this suspicious except that America needs to tell Dan how to vote, and Dan is operating in there on the assumption that Jessie is a goner--the fact that America has voted for him twice, including once for a nomination, is a good indicator that he'll be selected for an eviction vote. But now, with viewers' most recent look at Jessie being a fairly positive one for a change, it makes me wonder if he might actually come out on top, thus hanging Dan out to dry in a huge way.

I think the greater likelihood is Jessie will get Dan's vote to evict and will in fact be evicted, but there's at least a little intrigue in the mix now.

Posted by IA at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The big alliance is dead, but I don't know that April realizes it yet, as she's been otherwise occupied in her HoH position and with a few other positions we won't get into here.

April has put a lot of confidence in her belief that there's no way Libra and Keesha would sell her out after she hung out on the ledge for them as long as she did, but it looks like the two of them plus Renny and Dan (who seems pretty confident, with good reason, that Jessie will be America's target) as going to go after Jessie after all. If April would get her head in the game instead of clinging to this ridiculous notion that what the HoH says has to be so, she could have avoided this--Libra and Keesha have made their preference for Jessie leaving crystal clear, and Renny's feelings about Jessie were evident in the early hours of the game.

But April has stuck with her single-minded desire to get Memphis out--and I'm not sure what that's based on other than her promise to Jessie that he'd be safe--and has simply misread the mood of her alliance (a common mistake whenever a HoH spends too much time in their room and/or hanging out with only their closest ally). April, Ollie, and Jerry are all relying on Dan a bit too much right now; while April might suspect Libra and Keesha will defect, no one seems to be worried about Dan. But this week, America's Player could be the decisive vote-not what Dan would have wanted, but hopefully he didn't think that $20,000 came with no strings.

See? I told you America could make better eviction decisions than that house.

Posted by IA at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michelle is the only member of her alliance who has yet to be nominated, and this isn't a bad position to be in. What we've seen so far in this game is less two alliances going head to head, than a big alliance blasting another one to pieces before cleaving into two parts.

We saw this when the group of eight made their demands on Jerry; the only ones outside that group were Brian, Steven (both now gone), Dan, and Renny (who was nominated). Dan was the one survivor out of Brian's initial kind-of alliance, and he seems to have a track to at least the mid-jury given how far outside the decision making he has been to this point (there's an obvious risk to him from America's Player). That first group of eight eventually split, essentially along the lines of who could tolerate Libra more and who could tolerate Jessie more, especially as Jessie became the HoH. Jerry wandered over to Libra's group, as did Renny (who otherwise had no use for Jerry); Memphis, Michelle, and Angie were Jessie's allies. But Libra had the larger group, and Jessie used his HoH tenure to eliminate the powerless Steven rather than make a direct assault on Libra.

Now Libra's side has won Head of Household two straight weeks, and the result is that the alliance Michelle has been in will really cease to be an alliance as of Thursday: she'll have either Memphis or Jessie still, but a pair can't do much in a house of 9. Michelle will be in a position not unlike Dan was 2 weeks ago--almost too powerless to worry about. Libra's alliance has obvious fracture points; Renny and Jerry have little use for each other, and the April/Keesha tension has reignited. Michelle ought to use this opportunity to play as Dan did, and essentially declare herself a free agent, without any obligations and available for the head of household to use any way he or she wishes. I question if Michelle has the personality to pull this off, though. She may have gone un-nominated so far, but under-the-radar is not her natural stance, as we've seen from her continual sulking about the unitard. If she is left without allies, especially if she's left without Jessie, she seems more likely to rage about it than to burrow into her lair and wait for the big alliance to tear itself up one more time.

So April has a pregnant twin sister. Wouldn't it be something if the girls were raising babies right around the same time? I don't want to cast any moral judgments on the behavior of April and Ollie, but please tell me that precautions have been taken in some way.

And along the same lines as the time warp of the house that I mentioned a few days back: how paranoid must you get in there to believe that last week's earthquake was a concoction of Big Brother? I would think the southern Californians in the bunch would know what a real quake feels like, and would be able to say definitively that yep, that's what we had. But there's a genuine school of thought in that house that BB put one over on them. Hilarious.

Posted by IA at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cabin fever is setting in. April and Ollie were even getting into it today, and I don't mean the way they usually do: they were fighting. The downside of the mania for unanimity in the house is that a 7-person alliance (6 if you don't really regard Dan as a member, even though he's made it clear he'll vote with the power) is almost always unwieldy.

The presence of America's Player makes unanimity a good deal less likely though, since it looks like Jessie will stay on the block after all, and we can infer that America is going to order Dan to vote him out. This would actually be the basis for a real move against Jessie, given Libra's and Keesha's new anti-Jessie mood and the fact that Renny would almost certainly vote with Keesha, her closest ally. The problem Dan has is that almost anything would be better for him than a 4-3 vote, even if he's on the winning side. He's worked so hard to stay out of the limelight, and you can't put yourself out there much more than a vote margin of one.

The other possibility is that April will sense the mood of her alliance and bail on Jessie, or even try to get Jerry to use the veto (he's a prety solid vote against Memphis too, so he might agree). But I somehow don't see that happening, such is the feeling in the house this season that the HoH always gets her way. The notion that April's allies might not go meekly along with her has probably not crossed her mind.

A couple of further points: as mentioned, Jerry won the veto, which appears to have been the now-annual prize swap competition, during which Michelle wound up with the iconic red unitard and Libra won a trip. Michelle's mood, not all that great to begin with, has soured even further. And for some reason--maybe Catholic guilt shows up on his face more readily than it does on mine--there are actually widespread suspicions in there that Dan is America's Player, and this comes before the goofball task he's going to be given after Sunday's show, which is guaranteed to be the thing that's most likely to throw suspicion on him if anything does. Is he savvy enough to keep a lid on this for another 4-plus days? I have my doubts.

Posted by IA at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, April took my advice of yesterday and nominated Jessie and Memphis, enabling her to keep the most important part of her promise to Michelle, and also giving her alliance the numbers edge should the veto be used.

Assuming, of course, her alliance can hold together after the vicious fight that broke out as everyone was waiting around for the veto competition to begin (they have done them at night before, but it's too early for the traditional morph event). The tension between April and Keesha, a big part of the first week of feeds, had been put on the back burner of late, to the point where I had started to wonder if it was buried for good. But April's anger at what she took to be Keesha's behind-her-back sniping, a situation egged on by Jessie, was the flint that sparked a fight that eventually engulfed the entire house, save (I think) Dan, and was only briefly punctuated by a horribly perfunctory birthday celebration. Libra got involved too, not only with April and with Jessie but even with Jerry (I can't recall Libra cursing all that much before tonight); and as for Keesha's "angry voice"...wow.

It's just plain nails-on-chalkboard. It's hard to know right now what the game impact might be. April had given Jessie assurances he would be safe--she had to nominate him, or either go back on her word to Michelle or nominate an ally--but the fact that players have been unwilling to buck the Head of Household the last 2 weeks doesn't mean it has to stay that way. I don't think Keesha really wants Memphis out, and while she went along with the group with the Steven vote, she coud have the numbers to get rid of Jessie. Libra is angrier at Jessie now than she was before, Renny has never really forgotten what happened early in their time in the house, and as for the possible fourth vote to evict Jessie? "Dan is working for you, America!"

Jessie's motive for tattling was to get April suspicious of Libra to the point she might put Libra on the block, but I can't really see that happening barring another fight. It's certainly ironic that Jessie spent much of his time in the HoH fighting off Steven's pleas to nominate Libra, but has done little but make such pleas himself ever since Steven left. But the muscle man's luck may be on the verge of running out.

Meanwhile, today is Keesha's 30th birthday: a milestone for anyone, and perhaps more so for a woman who works at Hooters. At least the house made it one to remember.

Posted by IA at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another vote, another anticlimax. Given that alliances in the house are hardly a secret at this point, it's amazing that we've had three straight votes where everyone was in unanimity (or near unanimity in the case of Brian). We haven't even had the proverbial sympathy vote the last two times. The shutout for Angie is especially surprising because her opponent this week is the sort of player who in the past has invariably been looked at as a threat, and there's no shortage of houseguests who either fear him or outright dislike him. But the tone set in the early days in the house is that anybody who steps outside a consensus in any way becomes is presumed shady (Angie suffered today for her social behavior at the beginning of the game), and no one wanted to be the vote that couldn't be explained away.

That's where America's Player comes in, presumably. Frankly, I was surprised Dan won, since he hasn't been a big TV presence in this week after his nomination and really hasn't been on the feeds much more than that. He fits in the sense that he's already an outsider, so qualms about betrayal aren't going to factor in. But I question if he's a good enough liar to pull this off, if lying needs to take place. But if America's sympathies are anti-Jessie (they might be anti-Memphis if enough people are upset that he screamed at Jerry), he should be on safe ground given the result of the HoH competition.

There are two different kinds of endurance competitions on Big Brother: those that really are about sheer willingness to put up with tedium, such as the fateful cage competition that led to Kaysar's ultimate disappearance from Season 6; and those that have an endurance component but also have a physical element that ensures they can't go on too long. This was closer to the latter than the former (hopefully we'll have a true all-nighter later in the season, possibly when we get to the final three), and it continued a tradition where the early season endurance was won by a woman, namely April, who has more need for a private bedroom than any other woman in the house.

April's choice for nominations seems cut-and-dried enough: it's going to be Jessie and Memphis, which likely would have been the case even had April not cut a deal with Michelle. However, there seems to be some confusion about whether April's offer also extended to keeping Jessie off the block. This would be a huge mistake in my opinion, one so big that she would probably have to break her word, even though that's something you'd prefer not to have to do. The problem with keeping both Jessie and Michelle off the block is that there would be nothing to prevent one of them from using the veto to save Memphis (or Memphis saving himself, of course), leaving April with the option of going back on her word or losing an ally. There's also the fact that Dan doesn't control his own vote this week. That's not likely to come into play if Jessie and Memphis stay the nominees--one assumes April and co. will come to a consensus as we have seen the first three weeks--but if a fringe player like Jerry ends up going on the block, we're going to have a split vote and Dan's vote could become significant.

The only part of the telecast really worth mentioning came with Julie's confirmation that the banner plane that caused such a commotion the other day had nothing to do with Big Brother, something we had already suspected (true BB banner planes are always easier to see than that). And there was another fun moment as well, when Julie finally let Dan know that she didn't appreciate "Mrs. Chen." Diary probably should have given him a heads-up there before he embarrassed himself.

Posted by IA at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While we wait till midnight house time to see who gets called into the Diary Room and is given the option to become America's Player (I assume Julie Chen didn't mean to indicate that the houseguest chosen by us would have it sprung on them in the middle of a live show on Thursday), I wanted to return to the veto competition we saw on Tuesday's show, because I thought it was an interesting example of how life in that house weirds people out.

I've talked before about how the experience of life in the house, the isolation from normal routine and the need to take your emotional sustenance from people who in the end aren't really your friends but in fact are trying to wreck your dreams, can lead to people acting strangely. We've seen houseguests swear undying loyalty to people they have known for a few days, or talk about how great the "experience" is even though we can see for ourselves that it's pretty boring. The lack of stimulation has other effects too; witness the sleep patterns most of them fall into by the game's halfway point.

The veto competiton seemed to me to be the perfect illustration of how time gets distorted in the house. It's incredible that no one else came even remotely close to quitting the game in under an hour, even though all of them saw Keesha bail at a very early stage and had to know that leaving just a little bit after her would put them in the lead rather than Keesha (keeping in mind here that not everyone was all that interested in winning). I think I have a reasonably good idea of how much time has gone by if I'm doing something like reading, which doesn't have a built in time reminder like television does on commercial networks. But everyone in that game thought they were pretty close to an hour. My guess is that you get used to lack of stimulation in the house that what would seem incredibly boring and draggy to one of us does not seem quite as endless to a hamster, because they have all found a way to process the boredom.

Not looking great for Angie right now (the houseguests were finally told there's no show Wednesday), but hope is not lost. We're overdue for a major house shift.

Posted by IA at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Renny had herself a 54th birthday to remember (complete with calesthenics), but she doesn't even know the half of it.

The highlight from the perspective of the houseguests was the magnitude 5.4 earthquake that was strong enough and close enough to give the house a serious rattle--much more so than the minor tremor on BB8 that was barely noticeable on screen and that not everyone in the house even felt (maybe Kail was right and it is "earthquake season"). That doesn't seem to have affected the game any, but it's never a bad thing to give them something new to talk about.

What most fans and feedwatchers will be most interested in is the revival of America's Player, which was a controversial part of Season 8, due to Eric not being the easiest guy to root for (although he was certainly glib, the best quality you can have in that role), and due to Dick winning the whole season, something that almost certainly couldn't have happened without the twist. This time, though, it's going to be different because the AP will only be in effect for one week, and if it's like last season there will be one night he or she is asked to push for a nomination, a night he/she is told who to vote for, and one "wild card" night where he/she is asked to start a catchphrase or do something similarly random.

Unless someone is completely moronic or is forced by America to do something that strikes the whole house as illogical (e.g April as America's Player being asked to push for an Ollie nomination), I would think it unlikely someone could be discovered in just a week--with the caveat that the vote to evict could be a potential problem in the same way it became a very real problem for Eric last summer. The votes have been so uniform so far that any vote America asks their Player to cast that doesn't conform is going to be immediately noted.

So who might the America's Player be? I'm not sure who the country is taking to so far, but I would assume Jerry is the primary candidate. He has obvious underdog appeal, and even those who don't find him appealing might enjoy seeing him struggle with the dictates of the job (assuming he would even take it).

The part of tonight's TV show I enjoyed most was the attempt by Michelle and co. to persuade the gang inside the house that the banner plane only they saw had a message on it about Libra, delivered by Steven. Not a bad effort, I must say, especially since you never know, in a house as paranoid as the BB house invariably gets, which crazy charge will catch on.

Posted by IA at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's always a dynamic in the Big Brother house that works against a close vote, unless we're in a situation where battle lines are so rigidly drawn that there's no point to pretending. But Jessie has been such a complete pill on the block this week that you have to wonder if he might be on the verge of pushing the hamsters into flipping on him.

Even though Keesha still wants Angie out, and this seems to be one of those Big Brother casts where people believe the Head of Household literally makes rules for the rest of the house (or at least for their allies), it wouldn't take a huge push to get Jessie out of the house. It would probably have to start with Libra, but she's tilted the house before. She could push April and Ollie into opposing Jessie, and Jerry won't even need pushing, just an assurance he won't be hung out to dry. A fifth vote would be needed to throw it into a tie that would leave Keesha out of it completely, and that's where it gets tough. I'm sure Renny would rather Jessie leave than Angie, but she has gotten increasingly close to Keesha and might not be willing to go against her wishes. And given how hard Dan has worked to stay unmemorable, would he really want to come across as the guy who made a 4-4 vote come out as 5-3 against Jessie instead?

So the odds are still against it, but Jessie still has some time to sway the hamsters into doing the right thing. That's right--I'm taking sides here. Angie isn't a dynamic game player and her nonstop smoking makes me sad, but she's still the most interesting of the women left. C'mon, you have to admit that this

beats the hell out of Musclehead flexing 'n whining. And yes, this blog is written by a man--why did you ask?

Posted by IA at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a measure of the sort of bad luck Steven had in his brief time on BB10 that he ended up joining Brian's alliance well after Dan and Ollie, but now ends up leaving the game before either. And it didn't even seem like his relationship with Brian even had much to do with the game--he was a younger guy with a sense of humor, and a showmance was obviously out of the question (not that he didn't entertain the ladies with his reminiscences of his past hetero exploits) so where else was Steven going to go?

I didn't have much to say about Steven in his early days on the feeds, because I didn't really see him doing that much. The TV show seemed to indicate that his entrance into Brian's alliance, to the extent it was even formal, came a little ways into the game--in fact, I'm not even sure Steven was all that associated with Brian until after he was nominated. Steven has subsequently said that hanging around with Brian was a game mistake, and I don't think there's much doubt about that; he even apologized inside the house for the appearance it gave off. I do question, though, how much Steven really believes this deep down. After all, he was the oldest person in the house outside of Renny and Jerry, and one can imagine that the high school-like shunning that the likes of Libra was trying to enforce came across as silly to him. Steven's protests that his friendship with Brian wasn't all about the game (Angie has tried to say the same thing) mostly fell on deaf ears.

Steven's original hook for viewers was that he was the "gay cowboy," or gay rodeo performer to be more accurate. I guess it's a tribute of sorts that Steven's sexual orientation probably came up less among the other houseguests, and even among fans of the show, than it has for any of his gay BB predecessors, so much so that the moment he outed himself was never even mentioned on the TV show (after he pointedly chose not to bring it up in the first episode). Steven also won quicker acceptance from the other men in the house than practically any other gay man who has been on the show. Typically on Big Brother, there's a male dominated alliance that tries to run the show early, but the gay players (Bunky in BB2, Marcellas in BB3, Will in BB5) are left to seek their close allies among the women. But Steven seemed to get along fine with everyone, and there was little personal animosity involved in his departure.

Steven seemed to be targeted for eviction based on a pair of factors: one, he was less willing than Dan to accomodate himself to the mood of the house, which required a certain amount of bowing and scraping before the hilariously insecure Jessie; and two, there was a sense that he was "stronger" than Dan, perhaps based on his physical job compared to Dan's status as a high school teacher. Since neither man had a real ally other than the other nominee and only Keesha was willing to speak up for Steven (and even she wasn't going to go so far as to vote for him solo), he really had no good options after he lost the veto (and it has to be said that his failure to be more on the ball in that competition was inexcusable). Steven attempted to sell Jessie on the danger posed by Libra and her friends, and while he may be second guessing himself right now since he's been nominated by a Libra ally, there wasn't a good reason at the time for Jessie to kick off trench warfare with Libra's group. What Steven needed was something he didn't get, which was for the tension between the Jessie/Michelle group and the Libra group to erupt. Maybe a more savvy player would have been a better instigator.

Steven really came into his own in his last few days in the house, setting a fine example of how to behave when you know all is lost. With his realization that the failure to use the veto sealed his fate, he picked up the entertainment pace, using the slip-and-slide and even running around naked, always a big thrill. I don't know that Steven was all that well suited to Big Brother; he's not too familiar with the show and probably couldn't have gone far without alliance protection. But every season needs a few people who are more interested in entertainment and forging relationships than gaming and backbiting 24/7.

Posted by IA at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nominated for the second time in two weeks, and unable to save himself this time with the veto now safely in the hands of the HoH, Jessie has come into his own as an utter paranoid flake, browbeating Keesha to the point where I'm honestly starting to wonder if she can take it for another 4 days (especially since I see little chance she's going to use the veto).

Michelle's motherly attention to Jessie is hilarious and almost makes up for the guy's utter whininess and inability to cope. He's funny in small doses, but we're looking at a solid week of this. It got me thinking about other time in BB history where someone who was clearly not the targeted one of the two nominees ended up leaving based on having frightened the HoH or generally weirded out the rest of the house. Will in BB5 is a possible example; although he might have ended up being the target anyway, there's no doubt he ended up scaring the twins into thinking he needed to go.

Being a bad nominee is not usually a reason to be evicted, and I suspect Keesha is still going to favor Angie leaving. But as I said a couple of days ago, Keesha's real influence over what happens with the vote will end once the nominees are set. Angie isn't very popular with the other members of Libra's alliance, but the decision to target Steven rather than Dan was based on a belief that he was a stronger player. Jessie isn't allied with them, he's won two early competitions, and he's not a whole lot of fun to live with right now. There's time for this thing to switch, and even time for Keesha to come around to the thought that she can live with Angie a little while longer.

Posted by IA at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The last time I brought up this idea, I didn't get a lot of takers, but the early losses of Brian and Steven can't help but bring the topic up again. So here goes:

Remember the main reason why the Big Brother eviction vote was taken away from the American people in the first place? The theory was that the viewers spent the first BB season punishing those who created conflict and rewarding the bland and lowest-common-denominator--a dynamic which in turn drove the hamsters towards becoming even more bland. Restrict the vote to houseguests, and we would be more likely to see interesting players last further into the game.

For a while this seemed to work. Will Kirby, clearly the most interesting houseguest in Season 2 and probably the most interesting ever, was the winner that season, and it's obvious America would have voted him out early on had it been given the chance (he was nearly voted out anyway). There were a few exceptions over the years--the premature departure of David Lane really screwed over Season 4--but for the most part the more memorable players stuck around to make their marks, and the early boots were dominated by wallflowers and floaters. Last summer's pre-jury boots contained one would-be provocateur (Joe), but other than that it was the typical first week cannon fodder (Carol) and people were either bland or didn't understand the game or both (Mike, Kail, Nick).

Season Nine started out looking like more of the same with the early eviction of Jacob and Sharon. But Sharon came back in and lasted till the very late stages of the game without ever doing very much. More problematically, the early boots included the potentially interesting Parker along with Amanda, who was the dominant player in the first week in the house. Alex was popular with everyone inside the house and out, but he was gone early also.

And this current season saw two players who were popular with feedwatchers, Brian and Steven, leave in the first two weeks. The house now seems bland in comparison, at least on those nights when Ollie and April aren't in heat. There's lots of game talk, but few attempts at fun or even staying very active. Isn't it obvious that public voting on Season 10 could not have made things less interesting?

Big Brother could use a shot in the arm, and I think giving the vote back to America might do the trick. It would likely prompt more watching of the feeds. There's another factor too that I think is not appreciated, and that is that it isn't 2000 anymore. The summer of 2000, when BB debuted, was a time dominated by the first season of Survivor, where the "good vs. evil" storyline was taken very seriously in a way that seems naive and quaint today. The reality audience back then was primed to punish "villains," but while that dynamic hasn't totally disappeared, people are less scandalized than they used to be by the idea that someone might lie in order to win a game.

And the Big Brother fan base has taken to the likes of Jen Johnson in Season 8, who was never very popular inside the house and needed a lot of luck just to get halfway into the game. I honestly don't think there would be a risk in giving the vote back to America at this point, except that it would force a fullscale revision of the TV show, which mostly revolves around nominating and campaigning. But a show with more interesting houseguests lasting longer into the season would probably compensate.

Posted by IA at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's always interesting early in a BB season when a floater or a weak alliance member gets into the HoH room, because everyone in the house senses they have a real opportunity to sway things, and so it was with Keesha. This was our first true HoH room revolving door of the season, and I thought Keesha handled herself pretty well, which isn't to say that the nominations of Angie and Jessie were the ones I would have made in her spot. But at least they were her nominations, and were not dictated to her the way Dan handed Jerry's noms to him 2 weeks ago.

There was never any question about Angie going up on the block; we were just waiting to see which man joined her. Keesha's personal gripe with Angie, which as near as I can tell goes back to Angie's attempt to rally support for Brian, might not be an especially smart motive for a nomination, but it does strike at the other alliance, particularly when combined with the Jessie nom (more on that later). Keesha's first week fight with April now seems to have been set aside in the interest of alliance unity, although there's no way it's been forgotten. As for Libra, generally considered the leader of that alliance, she spent more time in Keesha's ear than anyone else, but Keesha mostly just humored her. Libra doesn't really know when to back off or back down.

Jessie's nomination seemed to come up almost as an afterthought--I really figured it was going to be Memphis or possibly Dan (which would have been a huge mistake). Jessie seemed to hurt himself with a pitch to Keesha to do "what the house wanted" and put up Libra, which worked about as well on Keesha as it had on HoH Jessie when Steven made the same pitch to him. I don't know how Memphis would be on the block (my guess is he'd try to keep cool), and Michelle would likely freak. But Jessie we KNOW is going to be an absolute pill as a nominee, especially if he fails to win the veto. And he might just be a more tempting target for eviction than Angie--Keesha would not be the first HoH to learn too late that you can only nominate; you can't dictate who the others are going to vote for.

The role of the so-called floaters could get more interesting pretty soon. Jerry, Renny, and Dan have all sworn their loyalty to Keesha, which is good for as long as she is HoH. But even though these three aren't acting as a third alliance, they're really a de facto third power bloc at this point, with at least two apparently destined to reach the jury phase. Keesha appears to have a shot at pulling Renny into a bond, but Jerry and Dan are in a weird position. As far as the others are concerned, Dan is a non-factor with his two old alliance partners gone, and it's very easy now to see him lasting into September at the very least. Jerry is ignored virtually all the time, but the same question remains: do you really want to use your HoH week on him? If Jerry survives next week--I expect there will be discussion about making sure he isn't in the jury house--his run could be surprisingly long as well.

Posted by IA at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Jessie hasn't really been known for his sense of humor to this point, but I have to give him credit for the funniest moment of the season so far, at least as I see it. It came during his conversation with Julie Chen:

Julie: You seem to volunteer quite often to your housemates that they consider you 'a body without a brain.' What makes you think that?

Jessie: Say--say that again?

Poor Jessie. But he got his way with this eviction, which took one more member of the evil Cult of Brian out of the house. We can question if it was the smartest thing from a game perspective, and I'm pretty sure it was a negative in terms of our enjoyment of the feeds, but Jessie did serve to further solidify things with Michelle and Memphis, and he seems to have made inroads with Dan, who obviously won't feel comfortable in an alliance led by Libra and containing Ollie, who has already backstabbed him once.

It never did appear from the feeds that Steven had a snowball's chance after losing the veto--and since I haven't mentioned it yet, let me say that those who weren't trying to throw it embarrassed themselves in a way we haven't seen since Chicken George tried to spell in Season One. But the producers certainly did a good job on Tuesday and tonight digging up every last little bit of tape that "proved" that there were serious talks about taking him off the block, or evicting Dan instead. Dan has to be given credit for the apparent success of his "I'm pathetic" strategy; it worked so well that Jessie, who doesn't seem like the forgive and forget type, never really thought about getting rid of him even though he was the one vote to keep Brian.

Keesha is now the HoH--probably good news for us because she has some wild card potential, as a outer member of her current alliance. Libra, Ollie, and April are pretty impregnable and she must know that, so on the one hand she might be tempted to target floaters, while at the same time extracting favors from those she spares (in other words, she'll need people on that side to do the dirty work against her allies that she can't do). But on the other hand, she might have some freedom to make a frontal assault on the Memphis/Jessie/Michelle group (possibly holding Jessie in reserve if she's worried about him playing the veto), in the knowledge that the pair of Ollie/April and the obvious leader Libra might still be considered bigger targets.

But early indications are that Keesha is going to be gunning for Angie, against who she still harbors resentment for the way she tried to push her into voting to keep Brian 2 evictions ago. The general dislike of all the women for Angie is approaching Janelle levels, if not yet in vehemence, then in how inexplicable it seems to me. Maybe it's a girl thing. An Angie eviction wouldn't be much fun for me, and it wouldn't rearrange the house too much since she's very much the fourth in that four-person group. But this does look like it might be the week where, having gotten essentially wiped out Brian's gang, the original eight who waylaid Jerry before the first veto meeting officially turn on each other.

Posted by IA at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Renny and Jerry both had a high profile on tonight's show, as one of the highlights was Jerry's fight with Libra in the wake of the food competition (Libra appearing to blame him in part for being on the losing side again). This was certainly not the case in Week One, when Jerry was Head of Household and Renny was nominated. But both have fallen under the radar, not only not really being considered for nominations this time around, but not being privy to many game conversations at all. Neither appears to be aligned with anyone, except to the extent that their votes might be needed.

This is a critical part of the game for players who are social outcasts, because any HoH looking for the proverbial "free week" can always justify nominating them, thus pushing the hard decisions off on others. Someone like Libra, for example, who is already farther above the radar than she might have wished to be at this point, might decide to put up Jerry. No one in the house would complain. But if a player like this can survive that stage, he might be able to go a long way.

We've had just such a player in each of the last two seasons: Zach in Season 8 and Sheila earlier this season, both of whom finished third. Their paths in the game were slightly different. Zach pulled off a variation on the Will Kirby strategy by being the last survivor of an early alliance. Once the alliance had been reduced to just him, new threats presented themselves and suddenly Zach became useful to Dick and Daniele as a vote to help get things done. Sheila's position last season is more like Renny's this season--a woman far removed in age from anyone else in the house, and with a personality that at best took a little getting used to. But unlike Zach, Sheila was never really part of any early alliance other than her forced relationship with Adam. She fell into what became Team Christ, mostly because she had a wee bit more affinity with them than with the likes of Chelsia, James, and Joshuah. Theoretically she was vulnerable almost every week, but there was always someone else who seemed a bigger threat to deal with.

Zach and Sheila illustrate that it's possible to go far in BB without anyone really liking you much, although it helps if you can win a competition or two along the way. However, it's questionable if two players can pull it off in the same season. Two outcasts can come to seem almost like a de facto alliance, and this is especially the case in a situation where Jerry and Renny share the same reason for their outcast status, their ages (Jerry is of course not really close in age to Renny, but they're both "the old one" among their gender). We haven't seen these two act anything like an alliance yet or even share many pleasantries, but the longer both stay in the house the more likely an alliance between them might come to be seen as a good idea.

I think Renny has a little better chance of going farther into the game than Jerry, possibly even as far as Sheila did. No one is really upset with her right now, while Jerry's "Colonel" ways and the belief among some of the women that he's a little too familiar might lead him to get a nomination the first time a woman is HoH. But if one of them makes it as far as the jury, he or she might go well into September.

Posted by IA at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, I know Brian wasn't an actual pilot, but I figured being in the Air Force was close enough.

These postmortems are often hard to write about the first person evicted because the decision on who to nominate and then who to target typically has little to do with the game, because the game has scarcely begun. The eviction of Carol early in BB8 was just such an example--who can even remember now what she did to get on Kail's bad side? But in Brian's case, even though he was only on the feeds for less than 72 hours and was booted during the third television show of the season, the reason for his demise was unusually clear: he was caught making too many promises too soon, the veto was won by a nominee, and the HoH was someone who could be intimidated with numbers.

Brian's initial ideas were sound enough, if not especially novel. He wanted to ally with Dan on affinity grounds, possibly not the best idea he had, since the most common arrangement for an early BB alliance is for the young men to team up--anyone could have predicted it. Still, Dan seems like a pretty loyal guy if nothing else, and he might have been a good teammate. The two of them pulled in Ollie as a third (had they chosen Steven right off the bat instead, this entire game might have been unfolded differently). He used a common military background in order to build a rapport with HoH Jerry, and steered the nominations of Renny and Jessie in a way that made it seem he didn't have huge ulterior motives. Had he simply stuck to this, it would have been a decent first week, and his social game, which sure seemed solid what little we were able to acertain, might have had a chance to blossom.

His big problem began when Jessie won the veto, because Brian wasn't indifferent to who left that first week: he wanted some of the young male competition eliminated no matter what. Brian turned his attention towards Memphis, but then, if the editing on TV is to be believed, he made promises of safety to virtually everyone else in the house. Once word got back around to Libra, she began to wonder how it was that Brian could make these assurances. From there, it was a simple matter to browbeat Ollie into giving up his alliance's main target. Memphis was fairly easy to pull into the main group at that point, the only real time we've seen him simpatico with Libra and her people so far. Once Brian was outed as having made too many deals with too many people, he was cooked.

Brian's betrayal, from Jerry's perspective, was that he had deals with other players; Jerry began to suspect, correctly, that he was being used (not that this is rare for a first week HoH). Brian would have been better off just lying low after Jessie won the veto instead of trying so hard to get the optimum guy out right away. It was too early to try pulling strings, and too risky to gamble that no one would talk.

I think Brian realized almost from the moment he was nominated that he had made a huge mistake, and had he survived I think he might very well have gone on to success similar to that of Will Kirby, himself in almost constant trouble the first half of Season 2. There were a lot of hard feelings about his so-called manipulation, to the point where anger at Brian was apparently the primary motive behind nominating his friends this week. But I'm not sure that anger would have lasted for the length of the game; there are always new betrayals and new enemies to concern oneself with (a feature of the game that Will exploited brilliantly).

And I think Brian's social skills and his ability to have fun would have gradually put most of the house at more ease, even though it's not an especially fun-loving bunch. The sock puppets were stowed away in the drawer way too soon.

Posted by IA at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After a couple of days where I might have come across as a tad downcast about this week, things have picked up again. And yeah, I'm not above saying that the feed footage of April and Ollie doin' it is at least part of the reason. In what I'm pretty sure is a house first, the sex took place outside a bedroom or (last season) a bathroom, meaning that the lights weren't dimmed in any way. Strategic use of a blanket meant we couldn't see much, but we saw enough.

Sex in the house for a second straight season tells me 1) that the American youth of today are growing less inhibited; or 2) the folks casting for Big Brother are simply getting better at finding people willing to cross that boundary. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that April and Ollie were seen all along as the pair most likely to pair up. Remember, this is the young lady who informed us in her CBS bio that having sex was one of her hobbies. I doubt this will affect their games any more than their obvious pairing off already had, although if they continue to boink in common areas that could create an issue.

Steven, the clear target of those in the power position who have a preference, made an effort at trying to persuade Michelle and Jessie to use the veto and put Libra up as a replacement. I'm sure the producers would like to keep Steven around, but I didn't really see where this would make a lot of game sense for Michelle. Stirring up April and Ollie sooner than necessary would do her side no good, and thus she boxed the veto. Assuming Steven does leave, that would leave us with Dan, Renny, and Jerry as free agents (with Dan trying to weasel his way in with Memphis & Co.); Memphis, Jessie, and Michelle allied with Angie a halfhearted fourth; and Libra, Ollie, and April in a group with Keesha a mostly distrusted fourth. One of these sides is going to have to strike a first blow, and I'll be curious to see if there's pressure put on to have another "easy week" with a Jerry and/or Renny nomination, regardless of who wins HoH.

Jerry might have put a target on himself with the way he confronted Libra, a result of comments she allegedly made blaming him for the fact that she is again on slop. Libra isn't coming across as someone who forgets who her enemies are, so Jerry might have moved himself up near the top of the hit list for that team. I don't know that Libra, April, Ollie, or Keesha are going to win a whole lot of HoHs, though. Jerry, for his part, might be trying a bit too hard to keep up with the twentysomethings and their smutty ways. I don't know that I want to see this guy involved in the sex chatter with the young people. Most of the time I don't even like it when it's only the young people. The Catholic schools left their mark, at times literally.

The houseguests enjoyed themselves with a not-so-impromptu "talk show" last night, which hopefully the Showtime peeps found entertaining. Unfortunately, Steven played a pretty big role in this as Brian was the instigator with the sock puppet show. The quickest way out of the BB10 house is to show a pulse. Hey, maybe Jerry does have what it takes...

Posted by IA at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Now that Steven is laying out in the sun naked, it stands to reason that he's the one most likely to leave this week, or so the house mood seems to be indicating. This might be one of those years where BB can't buy a break. I was down on Steven in the early days, but he's blossomed with Brian out of the house and has actually become pretty entertaining. So naturally, he needs to go, or so the less entertaining people in the house seem to have decreed.

I confess that I came into this season with a certain atittude about Jessie, based on my experience with young musclebound men, and he frankly hasn't done much to change my mind there. One of my favorite types of BB player to loathe and love watching in equal measure is the guy--and they are mostly men, though not always--who believes that winning HoH is tantamount to becoming a monarch back when people still believed kings and queens had a hotline to God. Jessie shows every sign of being just such a player, especially as it seems that alleged "disrespect" was at least part of the motivation for putting up Dan and Steven (although the strong push from the less emotional parts of his alliance didn't hurt either). If BBers had theme songs, I already know what the perfect one would be for Jessie.

The casting people definitely seem to have gotten what they were looking for from Jessie, someone who is good looking, but vain and none too smart: Hardy Hiill without any of the chivalrous qualities he exhibited early in season 2. I wonder a little bit about his childhood and whether his current musculature is of relatively recent vintage, because he comes across as awfully insecure, and I suspect it's not just his age behind that insecurity. The demand for respect tells me this is someone who is accustomed to feeling disrespected. Whether Jessie can prosper in the game might depend on whether he's seen as a bigger threat than Memphis, who seems to be his closest ally and is definitely doing most of the thinking for both.

Given that Jessie has already won two competitions, he might be able to keep himself safe long after his opponents in there want him out. If that happens, he'll hopefully have given us something in the meantime besides peevish nominations and flexing.

Posted by IA at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With Steven and Dan nominated and Michelle winning the veto, we've got several dull days ahead of us. In the last couple of years, I guess starting with James Rhine, it seemed that vetos were continually being won by someone who was either nominated or by someone sure to use it on behalf of a nominee. For someone truly uninterested in saving either nominee to have the veto seems to draw the week out.

If I thought it over, I might be able to recall a BB season with more game play in the first week than the second, but it's certainly not very common. What seems to be happening is that players have seen what became of Brian and no one wants it to happen to them as well. Neither Steven nor Dan is especially unpopular--except with Jessie, who is more than happy to use them as punching bag proxys for the absent Brian--but they aren't critical to anyone's game so one of them, probably Steven, will be leaving us.

At some point, we're likely to see some new game activity. The Dan/Steven survivor, Jerry, Renny, and (I suppose) Angie make up an unusually large bloc of mostly unaligned players at this stage. If you include Keesha as also unaligned--I think she's considered a weak ally of Libra/Ollie/April--that would mean the unaligned are really more numerous than either of the official alliances right now (counting Memphis/Jessie/Michelle as an alliance, though a fairly below the radar one as of now). That's the sort of thing that happens in a season where social and game weak links are being carried while potential powerhouses are being targeted. It's a novelty, and not all that welcome.

Posted by IA at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm seeing some folks around the BBosphere raising the spectre of Season 6 when referring to the dynamic that appears to be developing in the house, with Libra and April in particular appearing to believe that any sort of acknowledgement of those on "the other side" is a great betrayal. HamsterDame had her take here.

To a great extent, this reflects the hold that Season 6 still has on everyone's imagination. Recall that last summer, there were all sorts of "nerd herd" comparisons that sprang up when one side got a little power and started slamming their antagonists. This sort of thing has gone on in literally every season of Big Brother, but there's a segment of fans who believe that it all started with Season 6 and now liken all divisions in the house to what we saw that season.

I think there are a few similarities between the current situation and Season 6, the main one being the whole "guilt by association" thing. Recall that in Season 6 the original target of what would eventually become the Friendship was Michael, and it was his partner (Kaysar) and house girlfriend (Janelle) who were collateral damage. The current campaign being waged against Angie seems to be based on similar personal grounds, since in the end Angie didn't even vote to keep Brian in the house. OK, she briefly tried to keep him in the house, but that's usually not considered grounds for ostracizing.

But Michael in Season 6 got in trouble for personal reasons--possibly overblown, but no one went after him because he was a game threat. That's a difference from the situation with Brian, who no one seemed to dislike personally but got in trouble because he was perceived as trying to run the game. And while the division in Season 6 forced virtually the entire house to choose sides very quickly, the current situation doesn't really compare. It's mostly Libra and April who feel this way, and while Libra may be a power player, she has nothing like Eric Littmann's ability to set an entire tone for the house. Jessie was upset at Angie, but he feels that way on his own and not because Libra is ordering him to. I don't think we're going to see the wholesale mutual social ostracism we saw in Season 6. Fortunately.

This doesn't mean there aren't some ominous signs out there; losing one of the more active gamers after just 3 days is unprecedented, and the house already seems a bit less fun with Brian out of there. But it's early yet. Fullscale freakouts--and the return of slop will help--are sure to keep us entertained, and the HoH tenure of Jessie promises a lot of unintentional comedy.

Posted by IA at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm not sure the TV-only crowd will like him all that much, but I think Brian is going to be missed in that house. He was witty and the sock puppet show, which we saw a little of tonight (thanks producers, for giving us a "slice of life" segment on a Wednesday show that was relatively free of game implications), showed that he had the potential to be a Will Kirby type in the sense of keeping things light in there. Who fills that role now? Libra and Michelle are too self-important, Steven and Angie seem to need someone to bounce off of, and Renny's battery looks almost drained already.

The return of the studio audience was a good idea; I'm not sure why CBS threw that out along with the rest of the Big Brother 1 format, since no one ever claimed the audience was one of the problems with that season. But they didn't really have much to do, and the Julie interview segment continues to shorten. It almost needed to be even shorter, considering how easy that HoH competition was (I think quite a few of those who dropped out threw it). In what I guess qualifies as a big surprise given how dull (in multiple senses of the word) he appears most of the time, Jessie is the new HoH; more on that in a bit.

With the TV show now giving us things we've seen on the feeds, we're not learning too many new things about house dynamics at this point, though the TV-only types could be forgiven if they weren't aware that there are people named Steven and Michelle in BB10. Something that hasn't been mentioned yet on the show is that Steven did come out at some point; I expect it will be a "segment" in the near future, once they get their obligatory footage of Dan having his consciousness raised by the gay man. Keesha had not made much of an impact on TV either, prior to the airing of her fight with April. It's not at all common for the live show to edit in an incident that occurred only about 18 hours before, unless someone is having sex.

So here we are, with Jessie in power. Joy.

Early indications are that Jessie is going to take the safe route and direct his nominations towards players who were perceived as close to Brian, most likely Dan (the one vote Brian did get) and/or Steven. I'm not sure if Jessie really believes himself to be part of Libra's crowd or he's simply trying to lessen the target on his back. There's really nothing he can do about that target now, especially after Hulking his way to victory in the last veto competition, so "path of least resistance" nominations are probably his best bet. Memphis is the one player who might be able to subtly tilt him in a particular direction. Memphis would likely prefer one more young male out here, and he knows that as long as Jessie is in the house, he'll never be the lead target himself. Perhaps Brian is on to something with his belief that Memphis is in the best position.

Posted by IA at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)